A rant, so beware before you read it.
2003-03-12

Well I'm $540 dollars poorer. Defender is such a bad place to go if you have a boat but limited resources. They always have the kind of deals where even though you don't have the money, you just can't say no.

Actually I did pretty well. The stupid racing paint accounted for $340 of the total. I managed to buy a new $250 anchor line and chain for $119. That was a major score. I've learned not to look around too much there. It can be deadly to the wallet.

The meeting at Newport was a major disappointment. When I saw the number of blue hairs and old men there I knew the expansion would never pass. The meeting was a perfect example why we needed it though, but few of the tight pocketbook set saw the irony. We crammed at least two hundred fifty people in a space that the fire department says should fit 132. The fire lane was blocked with cars too. It really was begining to make me nervous.

Somebody cracked a joke about fire safety and somebody else jumped on them right away. Only two weeks from 99 people dying leaves a lot of nerves still raw.

The commodore announced that he had a 40 minute presentation and somebody jumped up and made a motion to move right to the vote. I seconded that whole heartedly. Because it was a budget issue it needed to pass with a 2/3 majority. The Yeas got 105 the Nos 104 and four years of planning and work went down the tubes. Evil 42 voted no. I guess the cheap bastard couldn't get his crew to pay for it.

Some people are just like two year olds. They live in the here and now. If they don't see the problem, or it doesn't hit them in the face right now, it must not be there. Come to think of it, there are lots of people who look at the world situation the same way. Sigh.... Nobody ever solved a problem through inaction.

As soon as the vote was announced I went to the commodore and thanked him for all his hard work and said it was too bad there were so many short sighted people in the club. The guy standing next to him must have voted no because he got all red and looked at the floor.

I mentioned that perhaps those voting against would kindly volunteer to leave the club when we exceeded capacity. Mr No vote looked like he would crawl through the floor at that point, but I'm sure he left happy, he saved a whopping $200 assessment.

The commodore thanked my for my support and said that we probably were going to have to start enforcing the maximums. People are not going to be happy and the people who will complain the most are the ones who refused to address the problem. Isn't that always the way?

Then I left for quieter places.

Previous - Next